Ink of the Soul
by SandsWinchester
Summary: "Imagine that everyone is born with the name of their soulmate written on their skin, and when supernatural things start happening to you, you finally meet YOUR soulmate, a man named DEAN WINCHESTER."
1. Chapter 1

The day was only dawning. The first rays of sunlight pierced through the windows to gently light up the living room that was in complete disarray. Cardboard boxes were strewn here and there, some half opened, and some still sealed shut. Y/N sat on the rug in the middle of it all and rifled through one trying to find her toaster.

She had moved into this new house in this new small town over three months ago but she still hadn't unpacked properly. She did take out the bare necessities but she had been reluctant to make this house her home. It didn't feel right just yet. She wasn't ready to settle in and get comfortable.

She gave up on her hunt for the toaster after a couple of minutes, and with it her craving for freshly toasted bread for breakfast. She decided she'd have cereal like she always did and got up to get ready for work.

She had been going through her monotonous routine for what felt like forever, even though it has only been three months or less. As she stripped to shower, she looked down at the name tattooed on her just below her left breast. It was the same color as her skin and barely visible, bearing the name of her one true soul mate. All she had ever hoped was to find him, and make sense of this life in some way just like her parents had when they found each other.

It was an odd thing to have the name of your destined mate tattooed on you from the time of your birth but at least then you had a name – a way for you to know if this was it. At the same time, it was also a curse. Everyone else made it seem less than real. People don't always succeed in finding their soul mate as intended, and when they try to make it happen with other people, it just feels…empty. Y/N had seen some of her friends go through the very same thing.

Yet when you did find your one true mate, everything becomes magical. _Everything_ just fits perfectly together. She'd seen it with her parents. They were perfect with each other, not because they were exactly the same but simply because even with their differences, they just fell into step with each other so effortlessly that it seemed like magic. When her mother died, the tattoo had completely disappeared off of her father's chest and with it, it seemed like true joy disappeared from his life as well. He says he's alright, that he's happy because he still has Y/N but she knew how empty he felt inside. Losing your soul mate was like losing the best and most vibrant part of yourself – without it, you're never truly yourself.

Perhaps that's why Y/N felt her life lacked meaning. She was missing that part of her too, but closing in on her 30s, she'd pretty much given up of ever finding him. Her search for him, googling his name had ended up being fruitless. All she ended up were images of guns.

Her tattoo itself was weird. She remembered how she'd panicked that one time when the name completely disappeared off her chest about five years ago. Y/N had known what it meant. She knew that her soul mate was dead because that's the only known reason why it would disappear like that. She'd mourned for his death like she'd known him her whole life, or perhaps even more. She'd felt so hopeless, like she'd lost the most precious thing before she could even truly find it.

Then four months later, it just reappeared without warning. She had no idea what was going on. Either her soul mate was dying and coming back to life, which was just stupid, or she had the weirdest tattoo in the world. This random disappearing and reappearing kept happening throughout the years, the longest being one and half years ago when it had disappeared for one whole year. And yet, it was back now. It has been for a few months.

She traced her fingertips over the name, and gently whispered a prayer like she did everyday. "Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, please stay safe. Don't disappear. Don't get killed. Just stay safe, Dean Winchester."

* * *

With a towel wrapped around his waist, Dean Winchester was in the middle of the strenuous task of achieving the perfect shave. Sometimes he wondered why he even made the effort when he very well knew that it would only grow up in less than half a day. When he nicked himself on the jaw, it aggravated him even more. He calmly put down the razor to wipe of the blood with a paper towel. He reached down to wipe another droplet that had dripped on to his chest.

His eyes lingered on the name tattooed there – _Rachel Benson_. He sighed to himself. He had stopped at nothing to search for her. He'd even used his fake FBI badge to get information on her only to find nothing. It was like she didn't even exist. Whoever this Rachel Benson was, she was like a ghost – hard to find, and with no proof of her existence on the face of this earth.

At least there was one solace. He knew she was still out there, even though he couldn't find her. He knew she was alive and well. That gave him some kind of hope knowing she simply existed. He'd seen it with his own eyes what losing your soul mate could do to you. He saw it happen first with his dad when their mother died, and then again with Sammy. The anguish that followed Sam even to this date since that fateful day in Palo Alto eight or so years ago still haunted him.

Dean sometimes wondered if he ever even wanted to find his soul mate at all. Doing what he did for a living, people around him kept dropping like flies. Everyone he ever got close to has ended up dead, even Sam at one point or the other. Maybe being unable to find her was actually a good thing. He couldn't imagine going through what his dad and Sam did. Just watching their pain had been traumatizing. The life he had, though it felt incomplete in some ways, it was still good. He can't lose it if he never even found it in the first place, right?

"I think I caught a case," Sam walked in, interrupting his train of thought.

Dean glanced at his brother. "Yeah?"

"A couple of deaths panned over the last three months, all in the same neighborhood a few towns over. The victims were found with their hearts missing."

Dean felt the adrenaline rush of excitement. This sounded _good_. He needed something good. "Let me guess. All in sync with the lunar cycle?"

"You bet," Sam grinned knowing how Dean felt about hunting real proper Werewolves.

"Well, Sammy," Dean said walking out and trying to ruffle his bed-head hair to some decorum of decency. "That's the best news I heard _all _week."


	2. Chapter 2

Y/N had just stepped into her new home from a hard day's work at the school when there was a swift knock on her door. She sighed. _It's probably Clark Trent from next door with some excuse to flirt his way to a date, _she thought slightly annoyed. Except, her parents had taught her to be nice to everyone even if they tried her patience more often than not. So with a smile plastered on her face, Y/N opened the door.

Two men in obviously cheap suits stood in front of her. One was freakishly tall, with shaggy long hair, and the other was about 6 feet and his dark blonde hair was slightly ruffled up by the wind. "Can I help you?" she asked them, slightly raising a brow, not out of mockery but simply out of habit.

"We are hoping you can," the taller one said. "I'm Agent Taggart. This is Agent Rosewood." They both flipped out their FBI badges. She peered at their identification and then back at them. "We'd like to ask you a few questions, if you don't mind, Miss. Y/L/N."

"Of course," she nodded letting them in. "I suppose this is about the brutal murders in the neighborhood."

The shorter one, Agent Rosewood, nodded in agreement. "Yes, that's right."

She led them to the kitchen because she still hadn't gotten around to buying any form of seating arrangements for the living room. She saw them looking at the messy pile of boxes strewn about as they walked through the house. "Don't mind the mess," she said gesturing wildly, and laughing a little. "I just moved in. Well actually, I moved in three months ago. I just still haven't unpacked yet. I haven't had the time with all the work at the school and all." They reached the kitchen and she realized that she was rambling. She only did that when she was nervous.

Was she nervous? Well she had never had FBI agents question her before, so maybe that was why. Or maybe, it was because one of them was most probably the hottest man she'd ever laid eyes upon and every time she looked at him, she felt like she was short of breath. "I'm sorry, I'm rambling," she laughed nervously, and gestured for them to sit down.

After declining her offer of coffee, Agent Rosewood, the one that made Y/N forget how to breathe, asked, "Miss. Y/L/N, you moved into the town three months ago. That's exactly when the murders started happening here. Any connection?"

Her eyes widened at his direct insinuation. _This one clearly didn't beat around the bush_, she mused. "Uhm, none that I know of. They're saying it's some serial killer right?"

"That is the general theory thrown around," the other agent, Agent Taggart, said. "Have you noticed anything strange around the neighborhood, Miss. Y/L/N?"

"Strange how?" she asked. Then almost as an afterthought, she added, "Please just call me Y/N. I'm tired of being called Miss. Y/L/N pretty much half the day." They looked at her in confusion. "I'm a school teacher, you see," she explained.

Agent Taggart smiled reassuringly, while his partner asked, "Of course. Well, strange like weird noises in the night. Maybe animal sounds?"

She scoffed. "Animals, agents? This is a suburban area without even a freaking zoo. The only animals I hear are the neighborhood dogs. Are you saying Mrs. Hozane's Chihuahua did it?"

Agent Rosewood ignored her sarcasm and looked into her eyes, as if trying to gauge her truthfulness. She noticed how he had the most greenest eyes she'd ever seen, and pretty much the most longest lashes she'd seen on a man. "Miss. Y/L/N," he said snapping her out of her wayward thoughts. "So in other words, you haven't heard any unusual animal sounds. Is that what you're saying?"

She cleared her throat, trying to compose herself. _Stop fawning over a man's looks and get it together, Y/N, _she told herself. "Yes, that's right. No weird animal sounds."

She saw Agent Taggart's eyes rest on her forearm. She looked down to see what he had been staring at. The scratch marks there had almost faded away. "Where'd you get that, Miss. Y/L/N?" the agent asked.

She shrugged. "I really don't know. I must have brushed up against a branch or something. I don't remember. Why?"

Agent Rosewood simply watched her as his partner said, "No reason. Thank you for your help, Miss. Y/L/N." He handed her a card with his number on it. "If you see or hear anything that could be of interest to us, you can reach me on that number." With that parting remark, they were gone. She watched them leave in a black 1967 Chevrolet Impala, and wondered to herself, _Since when did FBI agents drive classic muscle cars?_

* * *

Dean revved up the engine and looked at Sam. "Did she seem nervous to you?"

"Yeah, like she had something to hide," Sam replied thinking back to Y/N Y/L/N's rambling. People tend to do that when they are nervous over something. "And those scratch marks she can't remember getting. The victims started piling up only after she moved here," he listed the facts. "You think she's our guy?"

"Oh, I don't know, Sammy. She looked like one hell of a hot girl to me," Dean smirked remembering how the little skirt she'd been wearing had hugged her in all the right places. "But yeah, all the evidence point to her."

"She might be turning at night without her ever being aware of it. Wouldn't be the first time we'd encountered something like that," Sam said remembering Madison.

Dean glanced over at his brother. He was remembering the same thing and how hard it had been for Sam to kill the first girl he'd gotten close to since Jessica's death. "Yeah well, either way, we have no choice but to put a silver bullet in her heart."

Sam thought back to Kate, the werewolf they'd run into recently. They'd let her go because she taught herself to control the werewolf instincts. "We let Kate go," Sam reminded him. "Maybe she could learn to control it too once she figures out what's actually happening."

"Come on, man," Dean said looking at Sam in disbelief. "I hate this as much as you do, but you saw the police reports. Six people killed brutally. They were shred to pieces, Sam. You _really _think she could be taught how to control it?" Sam had no viable reply for that.

The car came to a halt at the morgue. Sam got out and waited for Dean but he still remained in the car. "You check out the vic's bodies," Dean told Sam. "I'm going to keep an eye on our suspect."

"Why do _you_ get to watch the hot werewolf girl?" Sam scoffed at his brother, in good natured humor.

Dean smirked. "Because I'm the oldest."

* * *

The bar wasn't too crowded when Y/N walked in. It never was on week nights. She shouldn't even be here, with it being school day tomorrow but she felt like she needed something to take her mind off everything. She desperately missed her mother. She hadn't spoken to her dad in days. The work was driving her crazy, but she clearly should have expected that. Teaching hormonal teenager was simply a nightmare. Then that run in with the two FBI agents had taken a toll on her too. She thought about the super attractive one, and it had gotten her quite depressed over the name tattooed over her chest. She felt like she would never find him, at least not in this lifetime. She simply felt so damned lonely, she just needed something to numb her to sleep.

She ordered her usual and sat at the bar. _Her usual_, she laughed silently to herself. One would almost think she had an alcohol problem. If her mother could see her now…

The bartender, Jake, whose name she'd learnt that very first day when he'd tried to flirt with her, kept her drink in front of her. "Rough day?"

She smiled up at him. "Yeah, you could say that. Thanks, Jake." He smiled back at her and walked away to serve another couple of locals.

"On first name basis with the bartender. Looks like you come here more often than not," a deep voice rumbled next to her. She glanced up to find the attractive Agent Rosewood peering down at her face. "Is this seat taken?" he asked and she shook her head in a negative. He took that as an invitation and sat down next to her.

She narrowed her gaze at him. "Are you following me, Agent Rosewood?"

He smiled grimly, if you could even call it a smile. "Maybe I just needed a drink too, after a long day of crime fighting."

She shrugged dismissively, as if she hadn't a care in the world why he was even there. The drink was clearly loosening her up and making her feel slightly buzzed already. "Hey, Jake!" she called out waving at the bartender. "My friend here needs a drink."

Agent Rosewood ordered a beer and took a swig of it. A chuckle escaped Y/N, and he turned to look at her, with an expectant expression. "What?"

"Should you be drinking?"

"I'm off the clock." He took another swig.

"You're _very _attractive for a FBI agent," Y/N blurted out.

He almost spurted out his drink in surprise. "Did you actually say it out loud? You think I'm attractive?" he asked in disbelief.

"As if you don't already know," she snickered. "You, with your broad little shoulders, and pretty green eyes. Damn it! Those eyelashes are to die for!" she exclaimed. She reached out and with a finger touched a lash on his face very gently.

He took her hand and placed it back on the counter. "How much have you had to drink, Y/N?" It was clear she was almost hammered and he was sure he'd seen her have only one drink.

She giggled. "Can I tell you a secret?" He leaned in expectantly, hoping she'd give away something that would help him with the case. "I have a very low tolerance for alcohol," she sighed sheepishly. "I really shouldn't be drinking."

Dean just stared at her, not knowing what to think. _This was their ferocious werewolf? She's more like a ferocious little bunny than a werewolf._

Her phone buzzed and she fumbled with it. Noticing who it was, she groaned and flipped it over so she couldn't see the screen anymore. "It's my dad," she said in way of explanation. "It's been exactly a month since I went to visit him. He wants me to come again to see him. I can't go. I just can't. I'm scared that if I do, I'd just stay there and never come back. I hate it here!"

Dean listened to her ramble and did some calculations in his head. If she was out of town exactly a month ago, she couldn't have been the werewolf running rampant in that last lunar cycle. In other words, she wasn't their guy. Somewhere within him, he felt relief knowing that he wasn't hopelessly attracted to a monster. He watched her tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, and stare at the empty glass in front of her. She bit her lip and Dean guessed she was contemplating whether or not to have another drink.

She abruptly turned around and caught him staring at her lips, which automatically made her to glance at his. They were full and in her drunken haze, all she wanted to do was kiss him. To hell with this whole soul mate business. She _did not_ want to be alone. Not tonight. "Hey, agent, do you want to get out of here? Maybe go back to my place?"

Dean grinned. "Let me text my partner and let him know where I am, and we'd be good to go."

She slid off the stool and grabbed her purse. "You do that, agent. I'm going to freshen up."

Dean watched her paddle away, slightly stumbling. He flipped out his phone and wrote to Sam, _Y/N Y/L/N isn't the werewolf. She wasn't in town for the last lunar cycle. Going home with her tonight. Don't wait up for me._

The phone instantly buzzed back with Sam's reply. _Seriously, Dean? You're going home with our prime suspect?_

_I told you. It's not her. Keep researching._ Dean replied back and stuffed his phone into his pocket, as Y/N walked up to him smiling expectantly. He laid out some bills for their tab and walked out with her.

They were silent as they drove to her place. They were silent as she opened the front door and let him in. They were silent as she led him to her bedroom. The moment the door closed behind them, she reached up and kissed him, silently. He kissed her back insistently, and yet he was gentle with her. In the dark, unable to see what they were even doing, they fell into bed with each other. They were silent as they found each other without even knowing they did.

* * *

When the first light of dawn streamed in through Y/N's bedroom, it woke Dean up. She was snuggled up next to him, and still sleeping peacefully. In her sleep, the covers had dropped low, and Dean reached out to pull them back over her chest.

His hand halted as he saw the name tattooed on her chest. He felt like the world simply dropped from underneath his feet. The name tattooed on Y/N's chest was his own.

He felt the panic rise within him, and quickly got dressed making sure not to wake her. _Was he really going walk out before she even woke up? Was he going to walk out on his soul mate? _Dean asked himself. He thought of Sam and Jessica. He thought of his own parents. With one last look at Y/N's face, almost as if he wanted to memorize every line on it, he left.

In his hurry to be out of there, he bumped into a man at Y/N's front doorstep. "What the hell!" he barked at him.

The man looked startled. "I'm Clark Trent," he introduced himself. "I live down the road with my grandmother. You interviewed me yesterday, remember, Agent?"

Dean recalled that this was one of the many people he and Sam had spoken to about the case. "Ah, yes, Mr. Trent. Nice running into you. Have a good day," Dean uttered in false cheer, and got into his car without waiting for a reply.


	3. Chapter 3

When Y/N groggily woke up she felt strange. She laid there for a while with her eyes closed trying to figure out why she felt like her head was about to explode. Then she remembered last night's drunken events. She groaned inside, remembering how she'd left with that attractive agent. She peeked a look at the side next to her on the bed only to find it empty. For some reason, it made her feel some sense of regret knowing he'd left before she even woke up. There wasn't even a note. It was just a one night stand and this was usually how those things went down. She knew that, and yet she couldn't help but feel sad about how it all ended – without even a proper goodbye.

She pulled herself out of bed and got ready for another day of work. She closed the front door behind her, only to turn around and almost bump into Clarke. "Oh hey, you startled me."

"I'm sorry, Y/N," he apologized, except he didn't look that sorry. He looked strange, as if he had some grudge against her. Had she unknowingly offended him in some way? "So, I saw the agent leave this morning," he said in a matter of fact manner. A blush crept up her cheeks. "Ah, so he stayed the night."

She mustered up a weak smile, "That's none of your business, Clark. Anyway did you want anything?"

"Not really," he told her. "I just came to see you. I'll catch up with you later."

_What a weird man? _She thought to herself as she watched him walk away. It was then that he noticed the huge scratch on Clark's forearm. A scratch that seemed to have been caused by some huge animal. _Have you noticed anything strange around the neighborhood? _Agent Taggart's voice echoed in her mind. _Well, strange like weird noises in the night. Maybe animal sounds?_ She made a mental note to call the agents and tell them about this after school, just in case it helped them with the case. It was a very random strange thing to mention but after all, it was something exactly like that that they had wanted her to keep an eye out for, right?

* * *

Dean leaned back in his car and watched the neighbor, Clark something or the other, talk to Y/N. He took a sip of his coffee and observed her walk away in the direction of the school. She didn't notice him sit in the Impala, just watching her.

When the phone rang, he picked it up instantly. "Any leads?" he asked Sam. They really needed something to direct this case in the right path – the path to their furry little killer.

"Not really," Sam said, and Dean could imagine him tiredly leaning back against the chair with the laptop in front of him. "But I ran the two names you asked me to. Something came up in the system."

The moment Dean had run out of Y/N's house that morning, he'd gotten thinking. It didn't make sense that she would have his name tattooed on her chest when the name on his was not hers. As far as he knew, that was not how this soul mate business worked. So he had asked Sam to run both Y/N's full name and the name Rachel Benson together against the system to see what he could find. "And?" Dean prompted, impatient to know the result.

"I think Rachel Benson was what her birth parents named her. When The Y/L/N family adopted her, they named her Y/N," Sam paused letting that information sink in. "Does this mean what I think it means?"

"Yeah," Dean muttered. Then in a sudden moment of frustration, he banged his fist on the steering wheel. "She's my soul mate, Sammy."

"You make it sound like the worst thing in the world," Sam observed.

"Isn't it though?" Dean mumbled. Then in an effort to redirect Sam's thoughts as well as his own, he said, "I have a gut feeling about this neighbor, Clark something guy. You should tail him."

"Alright. And what are you going to do?"

Dean cleared his throat. "I'm going to talk to Y/N. Got to go." He cut the line.

* * *

It was late when she left the school that day. Choir practice had run later than it should have and it was getting dark already. On the way home, as she walked, Y/N decided to call Agent Taggart. After a few rings, he picked up. "Hello, Agent Taggart? It's me, Y/N Y/L/N. You asked me to call you if I thought of something weird."

"Yes, Y/N," he spoke. "What's wrong?"

"I don't know. It could be nothing but this morning when my neighbor Clark came to speak to me, I noticed this scratch on his neck. It didn't look like any animal scratch I've ever seen. It definitely wasn't Mrs. Hozane's Chihuahua." She waited for him to say something. When he didn't, she said, "I just thought you should know, that's all."

"Y/N, is Clark new to town?"

She took a couple of moments to think about it. He'd come to take care of his grandmother, Beatrice, right after she got ill, and that was just about the time that she move here. "I suppose you could say that. He moved around the same time I did."

"Alright, that _is_ helpful, Y/N. Thank you."

Y/N knew he was about to hang up. "Agent, wait," she said. She knew she shouldn't be doing this but she just had to know. "Is Agent Rosewood there?" There was a brief pause on the other side of the line, but before he could answer, Y/N came in view of her front door. "Actually you know what? Never mind. Good luck with your case, agent," she said and hung up.

Then she looked up into the eyes of the man waiting for her at her doorstep. "Hey there, Agent Rosewood. Fancy running into you here," she said hoping he could sense the bitter sarcasm dripping from her words.

"Can I come in?" he asked, and after a brief debate within herself, she let him in.

They found their way to her kitchen. She motioned for him to sit, but he didn't. "Y/N, there's something I need to tell you."

"And what would that be?" She folded her arms in front of her defensively. "If you're going to offer me an explanation as to why you snuck out in the morning, don't bother. What we had was a one night stand," she said, even though it hurt her to say so. "You owe me no explanations."

"My real name is Dean Winchester." There he said it. He laid the truth out there for her to do whatever she pleased with it. "I'm not really an FBI agent. I'm Dean Winchester," he repeated, waiting for her to say something.

In a frantic move that surprised Dean, she reached for his shirt and lifted it up far enough to see his tattoo. "No, you're not. If you were, the name on you would be Y/N Y/L/N, not Rachel Benson." The thoughts running through her head scared her. _Why would he lie to her and say that he was Dean Winchester if he wasn't? If he truly was Dean Winchester, why did he have another woman's name on his chest where hers should be? Could fate truly be that cruel?_

"You were adopted, Y/N," he said as an explanation.

She already knew that. This was not exactly news to her. When she'd turned twelve, her adopted parents, whom she has always thought of as her _real parents,_ had told her the truth. They'd told her that her birth mother had died during childbirth. She never knew more than that.

"Rachel Benson was the name your birthmother gave you on the original birth records of the hospital you were born from. _You_ are Rachel Benson," he told her.

She simply stared at him. Here it was, the moment she'd been waiting her whole life for. Here he was, the man she'd hoped to meet her whole life. It was happening right now, and for the life of her, Y/N couldn't figure out what to say. "So _you_ are my soul mate?"

"You sound disappointed," he smiled grimly.

"No! Nothing like that," Y/N started to say, but a loud crash from the front of the house interrupted her.

Dean automatically reached for his gun. "Stay here," he instructed her, and moved forward stealthily to check out where the noise had come from.

He stepped light on his feet, trying to make out shapes in the dark. Night had fallen to complete darkness while he had been talking to Y/N in the kitchen. He'd almost cleared the rooms on his way to the front door when he heard a blood curdling scream. His heart racing in his chest, with only one thought in mind, he rushed back to the kitchen. _Please, God, don't let her be dead. Not her too._

He burst in, cocked and ready to shoot. The growling menace of a werewolf was hovering over her with his claws ready to strike into her heart. Dean shot him, three clean silver bullets to the heart. It fell on top of Y/N, making her scream even more.

Dean rushed to her side, and pushed the monster's body off her. "I got you. Don't worry, baby, I got you," he hushed wrapping his arms around her. She was shaking in his embrace. "Shh…I got you, Y/N," he repeated.

* * *

Dean sat with Y/N on the floor in the middle of the living room. He'd gotten her cleaned up and wrapped in a blanket. They simply sat there looking at each other. He'd told her everything there was to know – about what he did, who he was, and of all the things he hunted. She was yet to react.

"Are you going to say something? Anything?" he asked her.

Y/N watched the man that sat cross-legged in front of her, his long legs uncomfortably settled on the floor. He'd told her some incredible stories. If she hadn't been attacked by that _thing _tonight, she never would have even dared to believe those tales. Yet, she _had _been attacked, and that could only mean one thing. Everything he'd just told her was the truth. Her soul mate, Dean Winchester, hunted monsters for a living. _What the hell?_

The rumble of the Impala outside interrupted the conversation they were _not _having. Dean stood up. "Sammy's back," he said and stepped out to open the door and let Sam in. That was another thing to take in. Agent Taggart was actually Sam Winchester, Dean's brother – also a monster hunter. "Did you take care of it?" Dean asked Sam, referring to what he did to dispose the werewolf's body.

"Yeah," Sam said briefly glancing at Y/N sitting quietly on the living room floor, watching them. "How is she doing?"

"How do you think?" Dean muttered. "Screw this soul mate crap, Sam. Look at her! I haven't been in her life for two days and she's already had a close encounter with death. This was just what I feared. I don't want to get her killed," he said in whisper, running a hand through his hair.

"Dean," Sam laid a hand on his shoulder. "You're the reason she's alive. He would have come for her whether you were here or not. You kept her safe. Thank God you were here."

"I doubt she feels the same way," Dean sighed. "What am I supposed to do now? Take her with me?"

The slight shuffling noise behind them made them both turn back. Y/N stood there, still wrapped up in a blanket, with the edges dragging on the floor. Dean couldn't resist a smile. _She was just adorable_.

"Take me with you, Dean," she solemnly told him, gazing into his eyes.

"You don't know what you're asking of me, Y/N," Dean said, stepping closer. Neither of them noticed when Sam quietly left them alone. "This life," Dean continued. "It's not easy. It brings me, and everyone I love, closer to death. You don't want this."

She hesitantly reached up to cup his face in her palm, while the other still clutched to her blanket. "I want _you_, Dean Winchester," she declared. Then dropping her blanket, she stepped even closer to lay one gentle kiss on his lips. Dean simply stared at her, his heart beating against his chest. "I want you," she continued. "Whatever your life is like, no matter how dangerous it is, I didn't wait my whole life to lose you after finally finding you. I want you."

"You'll have to leave your old life behind," he pointed out to her.

"I don't care," she told him.

"You'd be risking your life by just deciding to be with me," he reminded her.

"I still don't care," she replied.

"You'd be –" Dean began, but she silenced him with another kiss.

"Whatever excuse you're going to bring up, I _don't_ care, Dean Winchester. I'm coming with you."

* * *

It took Y/N just a week to settle into the bunker. By the end of it, she was already unpacked, and all her belongings lay mingled with Dean's things in his room.

"You unpacked pretty fast," Dean remarked looking around the place, taking note of Y/N books on his desk, and her comforter on his bed. Her toothbrush rested next to his in the bathroom, and her clothes hung right next to his plaid shirts. He liked seeing the physical evidence of her being entwined in his life. It brought him a sense of completion that he couldn't explain. "Considering your usual tendencies live out of cardboard boxes, this must be a record."

Y/N knew exactly what he was referring to. She'd been living in that house for three months without even unpacking, but upon moving into the bunker, she had unpacked, making herself at home within the matter of days. In the end that's exactly what it came down to. "Well," she began. "That house never felt like home."

"And the bunker, this little hole in the wall, does?" he quipped.

"Dean," she said, kissing him. "I know this sounds incredibly cheesy, but…home is wherever you are."

He pulled back. "Gross. I've told you, Y/N. No chick flick moments."

She laughed, and the sound embraced Dean like the warmth of the sun after the gloomiest of days. "Shut up and kiss me, Winchester," she commanded, and he did. He shut up and kissed her.

"I love you, Y/N," he mumbled against her lips. It was getting easier day by day to say it without feeling the panic rise within him.

"I love you too," she replied. "Forever and always."

Dean smiled leaning in for another kiss. He'd always wondered what the big deal was about finding your soul mate. He'd seen the tragedy of losing one but he'd never known the good things. Upon finding Y/N, and being in love with her, he finally knew. It was a feeling like no other. The feeling of finally finding completion in ways you never thought you were incomplete. It was his heaven. _She _was his heaven on earth, and he knew he'd give his life to protect her.


End file.
